An online database launched today, 5 March, provides an oral history of Mongolia, as told by 600 Mongolian citizens who look back over their lives during the nation’s turbulent recent history.

What we have here is the real history.

David Sneath

The website has been developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge’s Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit and is available at http://www.mongolianoralhistory.org/

The ‘Oral History of Twentieth Century Mongolia’  project includes the life histories of 600 Mongolian citizens, who describe their memories and experiences during a turbulent century, as the country moved from being a part of the Qing Empire, to an aristocratic government, to Soviet-style socialism and, finally, to democracy.

Some of the contributors recount their personal experiences of the brutal Stalinist repressions of the 1920s and 1930s, in which at least 35,000 people (about 4% of Mongolia’s population at the time) are believed to have been killed. Others speak of the effects of collectivised farming, life in Mongolia during World War II, and the impact of post-Soviet privatisation reforms on ordinary people.

The researchers believe that the website provides the first ever online oral history database of 20th-century Mongolia, rooted in the real-life experiences of ordinary people, from herders to prominent politicians. The online database is an open access resource designed to be of interest to the general public, scholars of Mongolia and to the Mongolian people.

“What we have here is the real history,” explained Dr David Sneath, who led the project. “Because of the digital infrastructure, we can extract social, economic and political histories from this in a matter of minutes, yet the basis is simply people describing their own experiences, in their own pasts.”

“Reminiscences like these are why we think oral history is important. It lets us into knowing things about people and their lives that are too often overlooked or ignored,” said Dr Christopher Kaplonski, the project’s manager.

Now comes the task of discovering what the combined oral histories of 20th-century Mongolia can tell us. Sneath, Kaplonski and colleagues anticipate that the memories will reveal fascinating insights into events such as the impact of collectivisation in the 1950s – when the socialist regime consolidated land and labour into collective farms – and the disbanding of the collectives through privatisation in the 1990s.

Certainly, Perenlii, an 81-year-old retired shepherd, remembers how her parents were some of the first locally to join the collective. When she joined the collective farm herself, she struggled to fulfil her milk quota while looking after 500 sheep and mothering many children. What she remembers from that time is that she was always tired.

On the other hand, 61-year-old Pürevdorj has fond memories of socialism – a time, he felt, when people were hard working, ethical and responsible, when the state paid attention to the family and supported population growth. He expressed his unhappiness with democracy, feeling that the reversal in the state’s policy had negatively influenced the country’s development.

The research project was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and was carried out in collaboration with researchers at the National University of Mongolia.

For more information, please contact Louise Walsh at the University of Cambridge Office of External Affairs and Communications.

Example summaries of interviews

Interview with Rentsennorov

Rentsennorov was born in 1952. She lived in the countryside and both her parents were herders. She went to elementary school in Manlai sum (county) Ömnögovi province, then on to secondary school in Tsogttsetsii sum. Then, between 1971 and 1977, she studied at the Medical Institute in Ulaanbaatar.

After graduating, she was ultimately sent to work as a doctor in Nomgon sum, where she spent three years and began to specialise in children’s diseases, eventually becoming a children’s doctor. In 1983, she asked to go back to Manlai sum because her father’s health was deteriorating, and she has been working there ever since.

When she started work, children’s diseases were common, because it was normal to feed children with camel’s milk instead of breastfeeding. Child mortality was high during the socialist era, and her ability to curb it in the sum where she was working won her considerable respect. Among older children of school age, toothache was very widespread. Rentsennorov was eventually awarded the medal of the Distinguished Doctor of Mongolia for her work, and remains proud of this achievement.

Despite her recollection of health problems, Rentsennorov is generally quite positive about the socialist period. People were, she says, responsible and did their jobs “full-heartedly”. Nobody objected to orders from their superiors. Today, by contrast, younger people won’t take orders and have to be negotiated with. Rentsennorov also says that families were stable during the socialist period and upbringings were better because everyone was employed. The state encouraged citizens to have many children through a system of benefits and honorary medals. She says that today, many domestic problems stem from unemployment, and fewer children in families.

Interview with Bat-Ochir

Bat-Ochir was born in Hüder sum, Selenge Aimag, in 1926. His mother and father were both herders, but his father was arrested and executed during the brutal Stalinist repressions of the 1920s and 30s, during which Buriad people – like Bat Ochir – were executed because they were considered White Russians.

He remembers that the people who arrested his father had guns and army uniforms and arrested all the adult men without registration papers, then shot them, at a place called Doloondavaa. The next spring, they confiscated all their cattle, saying that these were the assets of “counter-revolutionaries” and brought them to Yöröö. Meat, milk and milk products were delivered to Russia. Most of the households in Selenge had their livestock confiscated. Bat Ochir’s mother’s family and even his grandfather were also among those arrested as counter-revolutionaries, because they were Buriad. The state provided no justification for this and simply arrested them on grounds that they were “a Japanese spy” or “counter-revolutionary”.

The first repressed Buriad person was the wealthiest in the town. He was taken to Russia and all his assets were confiscated. Later, his family received a letter from a contact in Russia, who wrote that he had been deported to an island in the Arctic Ocean.

Bat-Ochir also recounts that he was taught Mongolian script and square writing (an old form of Mongolian) by a local “educated person”. With this new-found literacy, he decided to change his last name as he was worried, following the repressions, that his father’s name might interfere with his studies and future career.

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